It seems like the first Fast and the Furious movie set this trend in film off. I know some people could care less, but for me, it just doesn't seem right.

I was just watching AMC's new tv show "The Walking Dead" and within the first half hour of the show, there were cops chasing "bad guys with guns" driving a '71 GTO Judge. Well the cops threw out a spike strip and of course blew out the tires on the GTO causing it to flip over a few times. Of course it wouldn't flip over on its own, so they had to use an air piston to flip it over.

So there is another perfectly good classic car destroyed for visual effect. I keep seeing commercials for this new movie "FASTER" with Dwayne Johnson and it looks like the '69 Chevelle he drives in that gets destroyed. I know that in the upcoming Green Hornet movie they built and destroyed almost all of the 29 64-66 Chrysler Imperials to make this movie. I'm still gonna see it, but I think that's a little overkill.

Yeah, this trend pisses me off. I saw a commercial last night for the new Need For Speed game where they blow up a perfectly good (and solid-looking) 80's Monte Carlo SS "cop car" for no apparent reason. Even that makes me angry.

Movie producers are (typically) NOT concerned about the cars that are destroyed; it makes no difference how new or how old.

Also, the cars you think that are vintage and valuable are usually (as in always) clones and/or cars that are beyond restoration and barely useable as parts-cars. What you saw as '71 GTO was a tarted-up LeMans.

I'm not crazy about seeing the older cars die like that, but at least they are going out in a blaze of glory instead of going to the crusher.

You often see car collectors talk about getting a "classic" for less than the cost of a new Accord or something. If you're going to destroy the car, then the newer car really has no advantage..... and blowing up a classic looks so much cooler besides.

Sort of goes back into the "I just can't believe how much new cars cost" category...

that's bugged me for a long time, just ask my GF... she never likes the results. i dont really have any problem with wrecking the plebeian camrys and garbage like that. i almost cringe every time i see an interesting and most importantly IRREPLACEABLE old vehicle early in an action/suspense type movie since they so frequently seem to destroy them for fun. if filmmakers want to wreck new stuff it doesnt bother me, they can keep building more of them.

a strange thing i saw was watching 'The Unit' and there's an episode where a random car driving down the road at night hits a character's car pulling out of a parking lot. i had to go frame by frame to verify that they had used a Trailblazer SS as the random vehicle for a total of probably 1/2 a second... does that make any sense? even financially its stupid.

90 percent of the vintage and classic cars you see destroyed are clones. Yes, there are a few that are the original thing, but, one can do 909% of the shooting with the real thing, and 1% with a paper-mached-up whatever.
That or the thing was being held together with bailing wire and rust, and as oldsaw points out, one step away from the crusher.
Also, keep in mind when a film was made. Could be said car was a dime a dozen when the film was shot, now, can't find any that aren't rusticled or worth $$.
Like it or not, it's a business. They are there to shoot a movie, TV show, whatever, and if a 70s vehicle WE like is mooshed, well, that's business. There ARE some producers (since they are the money guys, not the director) who realize the value of certain cars and will do what they can to protect a vehcile from destruction.

Sometimes the manufacturer will step in and say, ah, no.
Next time Vanishing Point is on, look at the train hitting the "Challenger". It isn't. It's a Camaro engulfed in fire and in bits and pieces. Chrysler said, do not show our car being munched.

Tom Heath wrote:
This trend predates the Fast and the Furious. People seem to enjoy watching the destruction of cars.
At least they (usually) use less desirable models to destroy. The GTO from The Walking Dead was almost certainly an unloved LeMans with a quick respray and some Judge stickers.

Well when Vanishing Point was made, that Challenger was virtually brand new. When the made-for-tv remake came out, they didn't even do anything bad with the car except thrash on it.

When The Dukes of Hazzard was a TV show, they destroyed all of those '69-'70 Chargers, but those cars were only 10 years old and at that point most people didn't care about a ten year old car. However when the newer movie came out they bought several and restored them just to destroy them again. Same goes for the Starsky and Hutch movie from a few years back.

My beef is that nowadays with cars that aren't exactly plentiful are getting destroyed.

Even if that was a Lemans with a Judge front clip (don't feel like the production company would go out of their way to make a Judge clone), I would hope they used a lost cause car over a clean car that somebody spent a lot of money restoring that they bought off of ebay.

yep, first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title was "DofH anyone???"

FWIW I destroyed my first classic car when I was only a mere 4 years old. My "security blanket" was a General Lee die cast car...and my favorite color was green. What does any self respecting 4 year old car fan do when he sees a gallon of forest green on the shelf and he knows his classic Mopar needs a respray? DUNK!!!

I think the reason is that giving a character a car people care about can make a hero look more heroic, or a villain more menacing. An average Joe who's forced into the roll of hero might have a Camry, and a pragmatic villain might sneak around in a construction van, but if you want to establish that a character is a badass, you need a badass car.

i think they should only destroy old cars that are made by dynacorn or the like. That way, original metal won't be wrecked, and they'll start making more shells! everybody wins. Of course for a while we'll only have old mustangs and camaro's being destroyed in movies, but those are cool enough to hold us over until they develop replica charger shells and 2000gt shells and AMC eagle wagon shells...

Rufledt wrote:
i think they should only destroy old cars that are made by dynacorn or the like. That way, original metal won't be wrecked, and they'll start making more shells! everybody wins. Of course for a while we'll only have old mustangs and camaro's being destroyed in movies, but those are cool enough to hold us over until they develop replica charger shells and 2000gt shells and AMC eagle wagon shells...

You can buy an about-to-be-crushed old car for a lot less than a Dynacorn body. Even the extra costs of making it road-worthy and presentable are exponentially less than what it take to put a repli-body in front of a camera crew.

Tom Heath wrote:
This trend predates the Fast and the Furious. People seem to enjoy watching the destruction of cars.
At least they (usually) use less desirable models to destroy. The GTO from The Walking Dead was almost certainly an unloved LeMans with a quick respray and some Judge stickers.

New movies destroying vintage tin pisses me off too. I think it's a side effect of living in the rust belt.

Jumping into the wayback machine, the original Vanishing Point only used 3 '70 Challengers. Two were 440, one was a 383. The 383 car was an automatic. I believe both 440's were 4-speeds. The movie came out in '71 so the Challengers were new. None of the Challengers were destroyed in the shooting. Including the one in the jump scene here. All were turned back in to Chrysler after shooting was completed.

Yes they used an engineless early Camaro (I think it was a '68) for the ending wreck. It was bought engineless and loaded up with gasoline for the explosion. I don't feel too bad about that one being blown up back in '70 when it was a 2 or 3 year old car. Today blowing that one up would suck. A '10 Camaro, no problem, go buy another one off the lot.

Bullitt used a new Charger and Mustang. Today the assassins would be in a black SRT8. Frank Bullitt would have a "his" edition Mustang GT. The detective couldn't afford a Shelby in '68, and that probably would hold true today.

Whichever Farce & Furry move used the '69 Camaro & '70 Challenger, the stunt Challengers were Bondo buckets and Hollywood magic. All were pull from junkyards and made to look good. There's a reason Year One was across the windshields on those cars. From what I remember reading even the dash pads were sculpted Bondo.

The Dukes, well they destroyed over 200 '68-70 Chargers almost 30 years ago now. But probably saved thousands more by all the kids that grew up watching the show wanting a Charger when they got older. It's almost possible now to build an all new 2nd gen Charger with reproduction sheet metal. I'm sure AMD didn't pick that one by accident.

Christine destroyed a dozen '58 Plymouths and saved countless others by creating fans of the car. And the hero drove a '68 Charger.

oldtin wrote:
Just watch the original italian job if you want to see a tragedy - although the cars were pretty new at the time.

Oh yeah I forgot about that. I cringe everytime I see them destroy those two XKEs and Aston Martin, but you have to think that those were new when that movie came out.

I think they destroyed a Lambo Miura in the beginning too.

The Lambo was an engineless wreck, a body double for the car in the opening credits. When it gets tossed over the cliff you can see it's got no drivetrain. One of the XKE's still survives. It was repaired after filming. The Aston was a shame, but I know I read somewhere that it was a tired old thing and rather rusty, gussied up for the movie enough that it looked good. The various Minis intentionally trashed and tossed out of the bus at the end were all standard, boring 848cc cars dressed up with Minilites.

Most of the stuff in modern films is repainted junk. With the cost of doing film production these days they don't want to spend any more money than they have to buying 'props'. I once was peripherally involved with a Mercedes SL500 that had suffered an interior fire. It wound up being bought by a Hollywood production company to be used for a "blow up" scene. They bought the wreck for probably 1/8th what a real one would have cost. Some seats, a top and a little paint...from 20 feet away the camera can't tell the difference.

It does irritate me though when even beater cars gussied up are ruined, especially when the chase isn't that great. The Mopars in "Death Proof" are a prime example...dumb, nothing car chase and two vintage Mopars ruined.

Rufledt wrote:
i think they should only destroy old cars that are made by dynacorn or the like. That way, original metal won't be wrecked, and they'll start making more shells! everybody wins. Of course for a while we'll only have old mustangs and camaro's being destroyed in movies, but those are cool enough to hold us over until they develop replica charger shells and 2000gt shells and AMC eagle wagon shells...

You can buy an about-to-be-crushed old car for a lot less than a Dynacorn body. Even the extra costs of making it road-worthy and presentable are exponentially less than what it take to put a repli-body in front of a camera crew.

You're missing the point, if they start mass producing AMC eagle bodies we could have a spec eagle rallycross class! or spec 2000GT replica class! who cares about the movies...

I'm re-watching Walking Dead right now. That GTO has gutted doors and single exhaust.

I have two second hand stories from Walker, TX Ranger which was filmed here. A friend was selling a nicely set up, but ratty 75 Camaro. The producers bought his car and had him find them a similar junker. They already had a nice one. The nice one was used for close ups, his was painted to match and used for for the chase scene, the junker was used in the crash. Another friend rented his 72 Camaro to them along with another local with a similar car. They bought a junker to crash.

It boils down to how sentimental you get over cars. After owning 300 or so classics, it doesn't bother me too much.